The object of my talk will be globalization, a term we are hearing a lot about lately from very different sources. Globalization is broadly presented to us as an accelerated process of economic interaction among countries and cultures, supported by a large array of modern communication technologies. From a generally optimistic perspective, it is said that through globalization progress and wealth will arrive to even the most backward of countries, and the standard of living will increase everywhere, and for everyone.

Globalization is also presented as a natural process, in the sense that it obeys the natural laws of the market economy. Nevertheless, there are some underlying fears or a sort of anxiety that has arisen about the potential results of such a process.

These fears seem to revolve primarily around three points:

a) The process seems too big, too fast, and beyond people’s control;
b) For the average citizen, globalization implies opening their doors to the world, and therefore to the problems of the world, problems which are sometimes the result of long and complicated histories that are not easy to understand. Once aware of these problems, people fear, they will feel responsible for resolving them;
c) The interchange of objects, people and ideas creates a situation of general confusion in which people experience the loss of their traditional references, i.e., the loss of what they call their cultural identity.

These are the kinds of concerns that circulate in this moment and for which we will try to respond according to the perspective of the Humanist Movement. This perspective may appear radically different from the one that the media presents to us every day. But before we continue, it will be necessary to define some of the concepts we will be discussing, for they can often seem diffuse and vague. In particular, we will try to clarify the nature of the globalization process, and develop an appropriate context for understanding this concept of cultural identity.

To start with, we say that the process of globalization is not at all a natural process, i.e., a process that moves according to certain natural laws, such as the laws of the market, as is generally explained. These natural laws of the market do not exist and will never exist since the economy, like all other human activities, is something intentional, dependent on the will, desires and projects of human beings. Globalization appears to us as an intentional, guided process, the expression of a precise economic model that carries with it a specific ideology and a vision of the world. This ideology has a name; it is called speculative capitalism, i.e., capitalism in its most recent phase of development, in which the expansion of the economy is no longer linked to production but to the speculative financial market. Put more simply, we are speaking of the ideology of making money out of money and, at the cultural level, of the religion of money.

At the forefront of this ideology are the multinational corporations and the banks. Their very nature is transnational, and they are not necessarily linked to one specific country, even if most of them have their roots in the Western world. Since this process began in the last century, these structures have not stopped expanding their influence towards every corner of the world, and have concentrated their power through astonishingly rapid acquisitions and mergers. Their increase in power has been directly linked to the loss of authority and legitimacy of the nation state, a phenomenon that is characteristic of the second half of the last century. These multinationals and banks have sought to supercede and transcend the barriers and restrictions put in place by the nation states, and in doing so have created a sort of parallel virtual state with its own rules and procedures. This parallel state has now reached an incredible level of power. Capital can now flow from one country to another in seconds and even the most powerful countries, or regional blocs, are realizing their inability to control it.

To give a recent example: The European Union, which consists of 15 member states, is currently the largest economic bloc in the world. At the last bi-annual meeting of the Union, in Helsinki in December 1999, one agenda item was the issue of how to pay for the countries’ social welfare programs. Due to self-imposed deficit restrictions, the money had to be raised through revenues of some sort. It was proposed that a capital gains tax be placed on European citizens who were investing in the London Stock Exchange. The British authorities refused to do so, explaining that such a tax would result in capital fleeing from London to the other markets. And so, a standoff arose between Great Britain and the rest of the European Union members that is still unresolved. What this makes evident is that even the largest economic block in the world is no longer capable of taxing its wealthiest citizens – the ones who can afford to speculate in the financial market. For this reason, we are seeing a diminishment worldwide of allocations to healthcare, education, pensions, and other public welfare assistance. It seems no country can tame this unregulated monster which is speculative capital.

In addition to their own rules, the multinationals and banks which direct this process of globalization have their own culture, which is articulated in a system of values and behaviors. This culture is reproduced through schools and media, gurus and prophets, who explain to us everyday that the only true value is money: money is sought, multiplied, worshiped; money is the only god, and thus justifies everything. They continue to speak of other values – equality, opportunity, democracy – but underneath the thick layer of hypocrisy the message is the same: the only true value is money. Even the poorest segments of the population are affected by this culture: they believe that getting money is their only defense against the harsh realities of everyday life, and so they orient their lives in this direction. Who wants to be a millionaire? Everyone!

At this point, I want to make it clear that poverty is not a value for us. By denouncing the cult of money, we are not romanticizing being poor or promoting an ascetic lifestyle. Just the contrary. We want only to stress that the fundamental problem of today’s economy is not production of wealth, but its distribution. At the world level, we have an enormous productive capacity and surplus, but the wealth remains primarily in the hands of a few. Money flows to money, and the divide between the richest segment of the population and the poorest grows. All of us know that in this historical moment there exists the technical possibility to provide food, housing, medical care and decent conditions of life for the entire population of the world. If this is not happening it is because the process of globalization is not directed towards the resolution of these problems, but to increasing the power and the wealth of the few.

I also want to acknowledge two international institutions that have had fundamental responsibility for the expansion of this process of globalization: the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. In order to compete in the global economy, countries are pressured to take on huge debts through these organizations. As the interest on these debts accumulates, the State is forced to sell off the assets of the nation – its utilities, land, natural resources – until the infrastructure of a country is no longer controlled by its own people but by foreign institutions and individuals. More than two dozen countries now use the dollar as their national currency, in effect forfeiting their ability to regulate their own economies. Generations of people have worked hard to build something that is then destroyed in a few months. We have seen many examples of this in recent times: Mexico, Thailand, South America. Money flows into a country if it is thought that a gain can be made, but when the money leaves, the economy of the country collapses, with no thought about those who are affected.

This model of globalization has become the winning model of life, one that is being spread to the remotest corners of the globe. And as it spreads it carries with it the ideology of money, competition, and individualism. The human being, the environment, different cultures, are all considered secondary aspects that can be either utilized or crushed if they try to oppose this process, whose strength is enhanced by the general belief that there is no alternative.

This ideology-in-export is today producing clashes with many cultures around the world, especially those that are structured around the family and religious beliefs. These cultures are erecting barriers between themselves and the rest of the world because they do not want to integrate into this model of life, which is not seen as an option for them. This is happening to a degree here in this country, as well, where the integration seen in prior times – the "melting pot" model – is today no longer desirable for many new immigrants.

In some instances, the imposition of this one model has begun to produce reactions that express themselves violently and irrationally. And there is no reason to believe that these outbreaks will diminish; on the contrary, they will grow in size and number as the pressure to conform increases. They will also appear in this country as the recent disorders in Seattle against the World Trade Organization demonstrate.

The other problem we face is that as cultures are forced to defend themselves, they end up defending everything – even their secondary or negative aspects. As a result, a "cultural fundamentalism" forms, where everything external to a culture is rejected, where only one's own way of life and one's own religion has a place.

I want to clarify here that we do not see this process of globalization as something negative only. Indeed, we are grateful that this process has brought us to the point where all countries, all cultures are coming together for the first time. This process has allowed a level of interaction among people that a generation or two ago would not have been thought possible. It has generated opportunities for exchanging ideas, beliefs, and cultural models. And it has demonstrated that the differences between people are insignificant in comparison to what the experiences and aspirations they have in common.

I will now try to clarify what this evanescent concept of "identity" means. It is normally believed that a personal or cultural identity relates only to the past, that it is a reflection of the historical accumulation of experiences lived by a person or a community of people. It is as if layers of experiences are accumulated and deposited, and this is what forms identity. This belief derives from a larger belief in the passivity of the human consciousness, wherein the consciousness is perceived as a sort of mirror that simply reflects the world. In reality, things do not go this way. If we look at ourselves, we see that in the important moments of our lives, we make a correlation, a link between our past experiences and the idea of a personal project for the future. This image of the future – who we want to be – is always influencing our actions in the present. This image that we form of the future is as important as our past in creating our personal identities. We are not only what we have done or what has been done to us; we are also our projects, our desires, our aspirations.

The same dynamic is true for a people, and in this case we speak of cultural identity. Cultural identity is not only the accumulation of ideas, customs, languages, and way of eating and dressing, that come to us from previous generations; it is also what a culture chooses to do with these things in a certain moment of its history. It is the project it gives to itself.

This is particularly true for older cultures. For example, how does India, with thousands of years of history, define her culture? What heritage will she draw upon? Will she refer to the Vedas, the Vedanta, Buddhism, Gandhi, the atomic bomb? In each moment of its history, a culture is obliged to take from its past the memories which can be most useful to carry on its project. In short, cultural identity is a project that people create for the future, extracting particular elements from their past. It is not something passive like the contents of a bag, but rather something we continuously recreate in front of the challenges that the current moment presents. There is always a choice. There is always a selection. There is always liberty.

We can also recognize that in the life of individuals or countries there are both positive and negative experiences, which form part of their cultural heritage. A person or a people can decide upon a project that eliminates or neutralizes the negative experiences and reinforces the positive ones. Do we Italians, for example, want to bring forward into the new millennium the tragic experience of the Mafia, or do we make a conscious choice to change this negative social behavior? This choice allows us to distinguish between a mechanical identity, created by automatically reproducing elements from our culture without thought or reflection, and an intentional identity, formed by choosing those aspects which are deemed to be of highest value for our future.

This process of globalization is quickly accelerating, and soon we will find ourselves standing side by side, culture to culture, looking ahead for the first time towards a common future. This future does not belong to any one culture, but must instead be a shared project that allows the inclusion of all. At this moment, the question will arise: what shall we bring together into the 3rd millennium? Each culture will be called upon to reflect, make an examination of its past and identify which of its qualities, experiences, and traditions are most valuable for themselves and for the others on this planet.

Having defined and clarified our position on globalization and cultural identity, I would now like to finish by talking briefly of the proposals and activities of the Humanist Movement in relation to these themes.

In contrast to the destructive process of globalization that is being led by banks and multinationals, the Humanist Movement has committed itself for 30 years to working towards the creation of a Universal Human Nation, one in which the differences between cultures would be considered of value and not something to be marginalized or eliminated. The Universal Human Nation would be an expression of the first planetary civilization the human being has seen, and it will arise from within the hearts of humanity, not from its leaders. To this civilization each culture will have to bring some of its own experiences, forming part of a larger, inclusive project. I want to stress again: we do not want something homogeneous – like McDonalds and yuppies everywhere. The development of a common project does not require that people relinquish the particularities of their cultures. Instead, it sees those particularities, that diversity, as strengths and resources to be drawn upon, as a successful project among individuals that incorporates the talents and points-of-view of its members.

At the base of the work of the Humanist Center of Cultures is this question: What contribution will each culture bring to the common project of the Universal Human Nation? Will they bring the frustration, the discrimination, the wars and violence that characterize some moments of their past? Or will they look for what we call the humanist moments of their culture, the moments in which the human being was considered the most important value, in which peace and cooperation among diverse groups was considered fundamental, in which violence was rejected as the worst enemy of humanity, in which all religious beliefs, including atheism, were respected, in which science and new ideas were developed so that pain and suffering in the human being might be diminished? All the great cultures of the Earth have had humanist moments in their history, and to them they have to appeal in this special and critical moment of human civilization.

To conclude, I will say that you are in an unparalleled situation here to take up this important discussion, for in some ways New York is a mini-model of the globalization that has been occurring across the planet. Living together here are people from all the countries, cultures, and religions of the world. The work that is done here can have repercussions far beyond the borders of the city. The task of all of the Center of Cultures – indeed, the task of all of us – is to make people aware that their cultural differences can be something valuable, that the human being and not money is the most important value, that solidarity is far more important than competition. All this can appear like a utopian dream to many of us, especially when we walk under the skyscrapers and like insignificant ants look at the high places from which the powerful direct this destructive process of globalization. But it should always be remembered that these insignificant ants represent 90% of humankind.